Monday, November 19, 2012

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Friday that Congress should
stop placing legal limits on the amount of money the government can
borrow and effectively lift the debt limit to infinity. On Bloomberg TV, “Political Capital” host Al Hunt asked Geithner if he believes “we ought to just eliminate the debt ceiling.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Geithner said.

Not satisfied with this intellectual victory, Paul Krugman celebrated by calling for a 91 percent tax rate. The amazing thing is that wasn't even the craziest thing in his column. He also asserted: "We are, morally, a much better nation than we were."

His claim puts me in mind of the Book of Isaiah. "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for
light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for
bitter."

180 Comments:

Of course we are a more moral nation than in 1950. In 1950, we had the same pregnancy and abortion rates, but it was all swept under the rug. We had open racism and race-based segregation, plus the violence that goes with that.

In 1950, we had more church and religious involvement, but many more people attended out of pressure and conformity requirements that do today. Sure, the believer base is smaller, but it's also more devoted and with fewer non-believers.

In 1950's and 1960's, we had an epidemic of organized gang related violence that has not been repeated since, not even close.

I love it when some idiot asserts that we're more moral now than at some time in our past.

I guess it's more moral to murder 54 million unborn innocent babies. It's more moral to have porn freely available to all ages, at any graphic level desired.It's more moral to kill any person anywhere in the planet without trial or proof of guilt, as long as they can be labeled a "terrorist" or "clear and present danger".

This is what is meant by “moral relativism”. The elites have convinced themselves that actions like the billionaire bailout and impoverishment of the rest of us is a moral good.

I for one rather take my oppression pure and honest, without the taint of hypocrisy. However the psyche of a narcissistic sociopath requires the delusion of “morality” to justify his irrational fantasies and oppession. Such justification makes him feel better about himself and that, after all, is his only concern.

They pour out arrogant words; all the evildoers are full of boasting. They crush your people, Lord; they oppress your inheritance.They slay the widow and the foreigner; they murder the fatherless. They say, “The Lord does not see; the God of Jacob takes no notice.”.....The wicked band together against the righteous and condemn the innocent to death.

The crime rate in the 1950's was FAR lower than it is today. There are FAR more murders today than back in those supposedly dark days when "We had open racism and race-based segregation, plus the violence that goes with that", and fifteen years ago, the rates were even higher. It's also nice that liberals can read people's minds from a distance of sixty years, and know exactly why they went to church, and also that they have access to secret records that tell of a wave of secret teen pregnancies and back-ally abortions and gang violence that somehow everyone missed at the time.

We can only hope that this guy is trolling. Surely not even a liberal can be this stupid.

What is even more shocking is that the segway to these justifications was the collapse of Hostess. This collapse was caused because of the strident refusal of the unions to give up anything to enable the company to survive, which resulted in the loss of 18,000 jobs. How he justifies even more union intransigence in the face of the facts is mind boggling.

Do you know how $#@%! difficult it is to create a company from nothing and actually create 18,000 jobs, and a brand recognized instantly throughout the world? These frigging idiots killed it in a matter of days. Frigging Facebook only has 3,500 employees. Up is down and down is up in Obama and Krugman's Amerika.

makes perfect sense. if no party is going to make any effort to vote NO on raising it as needed, the limit serves no purpose at all. you may as well just save us the theatrics of pretending the outcome isn't already decided.

Geithner’s comment is not that outrageous, since the Federal government essentially behaves as though there is no debt ceiling. What is the purpose of having a debt ceiling if you’re just going to keep raising it?

And it’s good to see Paul Krugman implicitly concede that the US can prosper in the absence of Great Society programs, and with a dollar convertible to gold.

Of course abortion rates went up some when abortion became legal, but essentially it's the same as it ever was in this country. The difference is now we have "Teen Mom", and fewer nunnery's to send teenage girls to when they get pregnant.

The same thing is true of gangs and that sort of thing. You rarely saw "those kids" at all because they were simply gone from public view - schools weeded them fast and furious at the beginning of a school year, and they simply went to boys towns, or ended up in the underworld of crime (sometimes organized crime). When caught, many were given the choice of jail or the military.

> I guess it's more moral to murder 54 million unborn innocent babies.It's not, but it wasn't any more or less moral in the 1950's or 1960's and just about as frequent as it is now.

> It's more moral to have porn freely available to all ages, at any graphic level desired.It's "availability" isn't much different now than it was then. Unsupervised children can see stuff that's intended only for adults.

> It's more moral to kill any person anywhere in the planet without trial or proof of guilt, as long > as they can be labeled a "terrorist" or "clear and present danger".It is certainly sick that it's so callously decided around this country right now, but killing individuals in an unjust manner now versus than is no different. Between 1950-1953 the US and other forces waged a terrible war in Korea, and tens of thousands died. The immorality of that conflict, and it's successors, are no more or less moral than the extra-judicial killing that happens by rote today.

I am all for comparisons, but Krugman is 100% right when he imagines that certain Americans want to go back to a period of time that was never that good to begin with. And certainly, if you were not Anglo middle class or better that golden era was almost certainly endured with less liberty, security, and dignity.

Dan Hewitt asks:What is the purpose of having a debt ceiling if you’re just going to keep raising it?

So Weepin' Johnny and his bathhouse of full of brokeback boyz can tell the Repuke idiocracy they're fighting to cut spending. Hannity and his followers will swallow it faster than the Rev. Jones' flock guzzled that superb Jonestown vintage of grape drank some years back. Bottoms up!

> The crime rate in the 1950's was FAR lower than it is today. There are FAR more murders today than > back in those supposedly dark days when "We had open racism and race-based segregation, plus the > violence that goes with that", and fifteen years ago, the rates were even higher.

This is partially true. The crime rate is vastly higher (overall, about double), mainly because we have far more law that criminalize behavior than we did in 1950's. But for "apples to apples", it's just not true. Now, granted, I only have statistics starting in 1960, but for example, per 1000 people:

Year, Murders per 10001960: 6.11961: 4.81997: 6.82006: 4.7

So it's certainly not "FAR HIGHER", between year-to-year high and low points, we are in the same range per 1000 for apples-to-apples. Unless the 1950' were vastly different from 1960, you are wrong.

It's also nice that liberals can read people's minds from a distance of sixty years, and know exactly why they went to church,We can infer from actions. Church attendance has fallen has the power of churches have declined. Even among church goers. Case in point, no one listens to church leaders. Recent election split 50/50, even though every bishop advised parishioners to vote against Pres. Obama.

The entire "atheist movement" of today emanates from former church goers.

and also that they have access to secret records that tell of a wave of secret teen pregnancies and back-ally abortions and gang violence that somehow everyone missed at the time.I posted pregnancy information up a few posts, and crime information here. It's basically the same, or lower today. The difference is that if you were a "normal" person, you never saw. Pregnant girls got shipped off, and bad kids got sent off, ran away, joined the military, or otherwise left polite society. The slums of the 1950's and 1960's were as nasty, violent, destructive and sick as the ghettos of today. It was no picnic living then if you were poor, just like it's no picnic now living if you are poor.

We can only hope that this guy is trolling. Surely not even a liberal can be this stupid.Just try to stick to the facts. The 1950's were not some great period of American power. The powerful middle class shielded a big slice of America from the decay, violence, and grittiness of post-war American life. But it was always there, just as it's there now. The biggest difference is that today we all see it that much more, because we see everything, that much more.

What is even more shocking is that the segway to these justifications was the collapse of Hostess. This collapse was caused because of the strident refusal of the unions to give up anything to enable the company to survive, which resulted in the loss of 18,000 jobs. How he justifies even more union intransigence in the face of the facts is mind boggling.

This statement is almost entirely without factual basis. The unions were the proximate cause of the liquidation, but the company failed many years ago, and was serially bankrupt. The last "restructuring" left the company spiraling out of control in debt - over a billion dollars of it. After the last bankruptcy, most of the older debt was put behind newer private equity debt, and the liquidation was pursued to be able to pay back the newer investors (as is their right, by the way) before the company was worth literally nothing, even in pieces and bits.

In reality, the strike was not simply about wage concessions, but in fact about the companies desire to finance operations using past pension funds. The one bridge the unions would not cross was to allow the company to use pension funds to finance the company, in return for equity in the company.

I don't blame any of them. I would not invest my cash in that company, and no one else would either, hence the liquidation. Even with an infusion that would have wiped out the pension fund, the company would still have failed in a few more months, or maybe a year. The strike - although union management was against it - was just as much about pensions money (which had been diverted recently anyways) than anything else.

It is not hard to see why those who have never been in a union can't understand the concept of solidarity. It's very hard to imagine a person voting to finish off the company that pays them a wage, but doing so to protect retiree benefits is not that hard to imagine if you are serious about Christian charity and what it means to be your brothers keeper, and to honor ones parents.

Not income tax, which penalizes the doer, the worker, the person who generates real productivity more than the parasite.

No, a wealth tax on the trust fund, the 5th generation Democrat Rockefeller, the trust fund baby living large in all the blue cities. Keep it low, maybe 1% annually on all assets. Then let's see Warren Buffet scream at the pain.

Those of us who would have passed along real wealth in the form of gold (if we hadn't lost it all in boating accidents) and moral character, would mostly be by-passed by this tax, I'd be willing to pay it every year if my income taxes would be frozen at current levels.

In the 1950s emergency medical care was in the Stone Age compared to today. That-along with a higher median age-probably explains much of why murder rates were higher back in the era before the Sixties Cultural Revolution than they are today. The big spike in crime that began about 1964 or 1965 begat the drug war and harshness in prison sentences. Later came militarization and de facto nationalization of local police. A totally different environment for crime than in 1950s.

We can infer from actions. Church attendance has fallen has the power of churches have declined. Even among church goers. Case in point, no one listens to church leaders. Recent election split 50/50, even though every bishop advised parishioners to vote against Pres. Obama.

The entire "atheist movement" of today emanates from former church goers.

There's some truth to this. 100-80 years ago Christianity was a civil religion for most of the population, but it's argumentative how serious people took it. But church attendance in the US has not really declined for Protestants, but likely has for Catholics.

"Since the late 1930s, the Gallup Organization has been asking pollees if they 'happened to attend' church or synagogue in the past seven days.' Invariably, about 40 percent respond that they have done so. Long running surveys like the General Social Survey of the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, the Harris polls, and the polling of the Barna Research Group in California have tended to support the 40 percent figure."

It also appears that people over report how often they go to church but the amount is unknown. Even if only 20% actually attend services once a week it's been a consistent 40% claim/20% actual for a long time.

I'd argue that the people who never/rarely attended church have just become more vocal and no longer has pay lip service to the civil religion, and new media has made their attacks more sensational and easier to reach the population at large.

Certainly one can’t argue their attacks have become more sophisticated, in fact the sensational and ridiculous nature of their current arguments show otherwise, but they reach more people who feel emboldened by the rhetoric when otherwise they might have kept silent as to not upset the social order.

Of course abortion rates went up some when abortion became legal, but essentially it's the same as it ever was in this country.

You conveniently left out 35 years of data. The abortion rate jumped to 42.4 per thousand by 1979. It stayed above 40 until 1991, and then slowly declined over the next 16 years to 19.3.

I would be curious to know more about the source data and methodology, especially for numbers prior to legalization from the printed version. But taking these numbers at face value the country went through a blood bath thanks to legalization. I'm grateful that some other factor has led to a reduction in the abortion rate, but it's impossible to argue that legalization did not contribute to immorality.

I would love to see estimates for the 1940's and 1950's as well.

The same thing is true of gangs and that sort of thing.

Source?

Side note: I would argue that a nation which looks down upon an immoral activity is better than a nation which doesn't care or celebrates it, even if the activity rates are the same. Celebrating evil is itself evil, and preempts any attempt to combat evil.

The crime issue was solved by mass imprisonment. So in order to get homicide rates to what they were in 1960 we locked up a huge number of criminals. Makes sense to me.

you'd think as a Nobel prize winner the Krugster, have heard of Hauser's Law

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauser%27s_law

Even back than they couldn't get more revenue with higher rates. And no, we can't change the threshold very easily either. I'm not even sure we can get to 19.5% (or so) these days. The level of comity has dropped and the perceived fairness level with it.

Had the US been 90% White and stayed that way we'd be able to support a higher rate as we'd have drifted into a Euroactions will have consequences and as pean style welfare state by now but the Immigration Reform act of 1965 pooched it.

As it is, any higher taxes will mean less economic activity and revenue.

As to eliminating the debt ceiling, yes we can kick the can until someone figures they no longer want USD and that we can't make them take it.

The 1950s in the US were dominated by moderate, naive liberalism. Yockey, writing in 1948, saw what the way things were headed:http://www.counter-currents.com/2010/09/a-contemporary-evaluation-of-francis-parker-yockey-part-2/(...)...the systematic undermining of the entire life of the West continues today.

The instruments of this assault and the weapons of propaganda, press, radio, cinema, stage, education. These weapons are controlled at this moment in Europe almost entirely by the forces of Culture-disease and social degeneration.

The “chief fount” is Hollywood, which “spews forth an endless series of perverted films to debase and degenerate the youth of Europe” after having successfully destroyed the youth of America.[7]

Concomitantly "a vicious literature" promotes the “destruction of healthy individual instincts, of normal familial and sexual life, of disintegration of the social organism into a heap of wandering, colliding, grains of human sand.”

The message of Hollywood is the total, significance of the isolated individual, stateless and rootless, outside of society and family, whose life is the pursuit of money and erotic pleasure. It is not the normal and healthy love of man and wife bound together by many children that Hollywood preaches, but a diseased erotic-for-its-own sake, the sexual love of two grains of human sand, superficial and impermanent. Before this highest of all Hollywood’s values everything else must stand aside: marriage, honor, duty, patriotism, sternness dedication to self to a higher aim. This ghastly distortion of sexual life has created the erotomaia that obsesses millions of victims in America, and which has now been brought to the Mother-soil of Europe by the American invasion.[8](...)

They are fundamentalist religious zealots whose religion is materialistic, and they cannot provide even that of their own personal property, but only with someone else's.They are the very thing they claim to hate and be against. This fact is not a Pscyco-Spiritual surprise, considering the Father of Lies.Fascism and Socialism needs lots of Capital and Production. Lots of it. Where will the production come from to pay the bills? It cannot. It will not. This is all about Nationalization or what some believe will be a Disassembling.

> It's more moral to have porn freely available to all ages, at any graphic level desired.It's "availability" isn't much different now than it was then.

False. The level of porn available today on movie channels would have required a trip to an adult theater or a private home showing as recently as the early 1980's. The porn available on the Internet today would have been extremely rare, if produced at all, in the 1950's and 1960's.

The quantity and perversion of porn available to any teenager or child today far exceeds what was available just a couple decades ago.

> It's more moral to kill any person anywhere in the planet without trial or proof of guilt, as long> as they can be labeled a "terrorist" or "clear and present danger".It is certainly sick that it's so callously decided around this country right now, but killing individuals in an unjust manner now versus than is no different. Between 1950-1953 the US and other forces waged a terrible war in Korea, and tens of thousands died. The immorality of that conflict, and it's successors, are no more or less moral than the extra-judicial killing that happens by rote today.

The Korean war? That's your example? Seriously?

South Korea was invaded while U.S. forces were stationed there. The U.S. fought to restore the previous border and stopped. Since then North Korea has become a literal hell on Earth where just mentioning Christianity could cause your entire family to be tortured in hard labor camps for a couple generations.

You're comparing the morality of defending against an invasion to Obama killing whoever he wants, where ever he wants, for whatever reason he deems appropriate?

> I would be curious to know more about the source data and methodology, especially for numbers prior > to legalization from the printed version. But taking these numbers at face value the country went > through a blood bath thanks to legalization. I'm grateful that some other factor has led to a > reduction in the abortion rate, but it's impossible to argue that legalization did not contribute > to immorality.

The data is footnoted extensively in the back of the PDF. Several sources governmental, a few private.

I agree, it was very bad for a period in the 1970's. But it is not true to pretend that the if you go back a bit, everything was just great and it all went to the gutter recently. It's just not the case, it's a false nostalgia. Many people who grew up in that time period incorrectly remember it as a golden age, but in fact, it wasn't all that different from now.

I would love to see estimates for the 1940's and 1950's as well.Agreed. The 2008 report (which I have yet to find electronically) went back further but I believe they did not have complete data for any ears before early 1950's. Earlier than that, I think WWII would skew the data far away from useful boundaries.

Side note: I would argue that a nation which looks down upon an immoral activity is better than a nation which doesn't care or celebrates it, even if the activity rates are the same. Celebrating evil is itself evil, and preempts any attempt to combat evil.This is pretty much indefensible from a quantitative perspective. Does God grant you a reprieve if you feel badly when you are breaking his rules? That's an interesting question. In the end, the behavior is the behavior. If you are going to judge an era by the piousness of the loudest preacher, what is the point?

until someone figures they no longer want USD and that we can't make them take it.

Which is in actuality what the threat of the US Military is for and what they have long been doing.

Yockey, writing in 1948, saw what the way things were headed:

The 10 Planks of the Communist Manifesto have been instituted in the US for 50 years for goodness sake.And the most important 3 have been implemented for over 100 years. The takeover has long been accomplished. The US is a Fascist, Communist mileu, the roots of which are well over a Century old.

"And Geithner said 'Let the Fed bring forth monies, and let them multiply in the Banks, and on Wall Street, and over the face of the whole earth; and let us bring down interest rates.' And it was so. And Krugman saw the debt, that it was good. And he named the inflation 'QE', and he named the debt 'confidence'. And there was supply and there was demand, Day Zero."

"It is not hard to see why those who have never been in a union can't understand the concept of solidarity."

It is you who seems to lack understanding. Most here know perfectly well that Hostess' fate was sealed long ago with pension and healthcare plans that union bosses and company management agreed to, each side realizing that keeping those promises would be someone else's problem sometime in the future, long after they received their own year end bonuses and golden parachutes. Hostess' fate is a glimpse of what awaits the entire western world.

"This is pretty much indefensible from a quantitative perspective. Does God grant you a reprieve if you feel badly when you are breaking his rules? That's an interesting question. In the end, the behavior is the behavior. If you are going to judge an era by the piousness of the loudest preacher, what is the point?"

Speaking for God now? That's also an especially interesting position in light of the verse from Isiah Vox posted above.

> You're comparing the morality of defending against an invasion to Obama killing whoever he wants, > where ever he wants, for whatever reason he deems appropriate?

Defending an invasion? The US was invaded? The US was not invaded of course, it was a war not about US interests, but about foreign interests, in which our soldiers and many others were political pawns. It was, of course, an immoral and unjust war for the US to be involved in, and was not properly authorized by Congress anymore than what Obama is doing now.

If you want to stick domestically, you had the FBI running counter-intelligence operations, including COINTELPRO, from 1956 to 1971, which was the exact same type of lawless, illicit, and shameful behaviour that Pres. Obama is involved in with drones.

Internationally, the CIA start running "black ops" in 1953 in Iran, 1956 in Indonesia, which were every bit as lawless, murderous, and destructive as the CIA drone program. Perhaps the only part of drones which are worse is that they are literally mindless, where as in the CIA's early days, actual Americans had to task risks to break the law and subvert foreigners.

> False. The level of porn available today on movie channels would have required a trip to an adult > theater or a private home showing as recently as the early 1980's. The porn available on the > Internet today would have been extremely rare, if produced at all, in the 1950's and 1960's.

Availability to adults and availability to children is not the same thing. A child with access to over the air TV, the same as 1950, has the same or less access to porn as always, which is zero.

The fact that adults have access to it, or grant it to children, is that what the real complaint is?

There was a short story in Omni magazine (long time ago) that I've never been able to find - about a trucker running from the law, penalty for not paying taxes is getting buried under the concrete on the freeway. The gov'ts take was like 96% but "they gave everybody everything they needed".

Kinda like the Soviets...These dumb kid class warrior wannabees never seem to notice that the politburo had pretty nice perks, special stores that required real money for stuff nobody else could get, and sometimes a nice dacha on the Black Sea. There's no real socialists as Victor Davis Hansen would say.

"No, a wealth tax on the trust fund, the 5th generation Democrat Rockefeller, the trust fund baby living large in all the blue cities. Keep it low, maybe 1% annually on all assets. Then let's see Warren Buffet scream at the pain."

We had this once. It was called Georgism ... invented by Henry George. A "Single Tax" on land.

A Georgist single tax course would cut right into the vast tracks of land held by plutocrats of Hollyweird and Wall Street. Can you imagine what Bruce Springstein would say when he saw his tax bill on the all the "farms" he owns?

But alas, Henry George and his movement got taken over by the left/progressives, who pounded his legacy into dust.

(George did influence a few libertarians though ... Albert Nock and Frank Chodorov...even William F. Buckley... mostly lost down the Memory Hole today...)

The crime rate is vastly higher (overall, about double), mainly because we have far more law that criminalize behavior than we did in 1950's.

False. See this link: http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

With the exception of murder, every other category is higher. These are the well defined categories most people think of when someone mentions "crime".

I posted pregnancy information up a few posts, and crime information here. It's basically the same, or lower today.

You posted an incomplete picture on abortion rates, and only posted a couple sample points from one category of crime. You seem to be cherry picking to try and support your position.

It's also nice that liberals can read people's minds from a distance of sixty years, and know exactly why they went to church,We can infer from actions. Church attendance has fallen has the power of churches have declined. Even among church goers. Case in point, no one listens to church leaders. Recent election split 50/50, even though every bishop advised parishioners to vote against Pres. Obama.

I'm sorry, but how is this an argument that church members were not really moral in the 1950's vs. an argument that morality has declined?

The difference is that if you were a "normal" person, you never saw. Pregnant girls got shipped off, and bad kids got sent off, ran away, joined the military, or otherwise left polite society.

In other words: society shamed evil and evildoers. How is a society which embraces evil more moral than one which shames it?

The slums of the 1950's and 1960's were as nasty, violent, destructive and sick as the ghettos of today.

Were they? I seem to recall Thomas Sowell arguing the exact opposite. I'm afraid I don't have that particular essay and the data he presented on hand, but I think we should probably check statistics and eye witness accounts before assuming this is true.

Just try to stick to the facts. The 1950's were not some great period of American power. The powerful middle class shielded a big slice of America from the decay, violence, and grittiness of post-war American life. But it was always there, just as it's there now. The biggest difference is that today we all see it that much more, because we see everything, that much more.

We are less fruitful and more murderous...by your own skewed stats - Daniel

Smackdown.

Utopian secular humanists HATE NATURE. They hate it - and the Design and Purpose behind it.Self-loathing, tyrannical psychotics, every one. Their (Ignorant) Will Be Done.Oh, and they HATE the innocence of children. Hate it. Something about that reflecting light that they must stamp out...

> It is you who seems to lack understanding. Most here know perfectly well that Hostess' fate was > sealed long ago with pension and healthcare plans that union bosses and company management agreed to, > each side realizing that keeping those promises would be someone else's problem sometime in the > future, long after they received their own year end bonuses and golden parachutes. Hostess' fate is a > glimpse of what awaits the entire western world.

Agreed - but let's not pretend that the unions did not bend - they did repeatedly and substantially. The one road they would not bend on was to allow the company to take back payments already made. Forget about future contributions - we are talking about money already paid to the retirees in order to finance future operations. No rational person would make that investment, nor should they.

I agree about the fruitful part, but murder rates.. basically even, even given population changes.

There is also another argument to be made, which I have not yet made, which is that the country is far more urban now compared to then. More and larger cities. This means, in all likelihood, the cities are now safer than they were in 1950-60, since crimes tend to be centered in that area (rural areas not exactly hot bed of crime). Give that murder rates are steady-ish despite larger cities, it would probably follow that murders per thousand city dwellers is down. In some time I may be able to look into that and make a compelling case, or it could be some other fact is distorting my conclusion.

If we want to move the goal posts, that's fine, it may change the conclusion.

This statement is almost entirely without factual basis. The unions were the proximate cause of the liquidation, but the company failed many years ago, and was serially bankrupt.

Past financial troubles does not change the fact that the Baker's union insured liquidation through their strike. Maybe the company would have failed again and faced liquidation any way, maybe it would have lasted another 80 years. But the Baker's union made that decision for everyone, including the Teamsters union, and cost everyone their jobs, however long those jobs would have lasted.

In reality, the strike was not simply about wage concessions, but in fact about the companies desire to finance operations using past pension funds. The one bridge the unions would not cross was to allow the company to use pension funds to finance the company, in return for equity in the company.

The Teamsters union, which represented more employees, was not on strike. Did they concede to this, or was Hostess only going to use the pensions of Baker's union employees?

I don't blame any of them. I would not invest my cash in that company, and no one else would either, hence the liquidation.

Once again, the Teamsters were ready to work. So something is not correct about your version of the events. Either the use of pension funds was not the issue, or some union workers were willing to invest to see the company move forward.

It's very hard to imagine a person voting to finish off the company that pays them a wage, but doing so to protect retiree benefits is not that hard to imagine if you are serious about Christian charity and what it means to be your brothers keeper, and to honor ones parents.

This was neither a charity case nor a matter of parent/child relations. I'm hard pressed to see how either applies in any matter involving unions.

This means, in all likelihood, the cities are now safer than they were in 1950-60, since crimes tend to be centered in that area (rural areas not exactly hot bed of crime).

Perhaps murders are down, but if you wanted to do a comparison I'd include a number of violent crimes like rape, kidnapping, and assault. It's possible that people are killing each other less, but committing other crimes against each other.

I think it's important to note the massive prison population in the US as we tend to simply lock up violent offenders very quickly.

The data is footnoted extensively in the back of the PDF. Several sources governmental, a few private.

Yes, I read the footnotes. I still would like to know more but probably will not have the time to obtain/review the referenced material.

I agree, it was very bad for a period in the 1970's.

If by "very bad" you mean "well above previous norms" then it was "very bad" until about 2001.

But it is not true to pretend that the if you go back a bit, everything was just great and it all went to the gutter recently. It's just not the case, it's a false nostalgia.

Curious that nobody has false nostalgia about the economies of the 1930's and late 1970's; World War II; or the Korean and Vietnam wars. I never heard my grandparents talk about how much wealthier they were, or how much better technology was, or how much better it would have been to be in one of the earlier wars vs. the Gulf Wars. But they often talked about the difference in morality. Quite frankly I believe I've seen a decrease in morality just in my time.

Why do you think that false nostalgia is the reason older generations think morality was higher in the 1950's? Especially when the data presented thus far seems to concur with the idea that morality has actually decreased.

Side note: I would argue that a nation which looks down upon an immoral activity is better than a nation which doesn't care or celebrates it, even if the activity rates are the same. Celebrating evil is itself evil, and preempts any attempt to combat evil.This is pretty much indefensible from a quantitative perspective.

I never said it was from a quantitative perspective.

Does God grant you a reprieve if you feel badly when you are breaking his rules?

Aren't confession and repentance essentially feeling shame for breaking His laws, and wishing to change? If God does not grant a reprieve to those who feel shame and therefore confess, who among us is to be saved? Will God save instead the person who commits their sin and boasts about it?

> With the exception of murder, every other category is higher. These are the well defined categories > most people think of when someone mentions "crime".

Well, first, if we are going to move goal posts, let's just do that: "There are FAR more murders today than back in those supposedly dark days when". That is clearly false. Murder rates are not "FAR HIGHER".

When we look at "crime", I think it's instructive to compare what was a crime then, and now. Do really want to compare "rape standards" from 1950-60 with rape standards 2000 and on?

In other terms, data for others that you mention as crime have been tinkered with over time, including by legislation new classes of crime not previously recorded. See here (http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/data_quality_guidelines) for more information. Some of the crimes added are arson and hate crimes.

> You posted an incomplete picture on abortion rates, and only posted a couple sample points from one > category of crime. You seem to be cherry picking to try and support your position.Be fair, goal posts are moving again. From the time period that was initially discussed, we now want to compare the 1970s or 1980s?

> I'm sorry, but how is this an argument that church members were not really moral in the 1950's vs. > an argument that morality has declined?My proposition was supposed to be that, church attendance was closer to universal in the 1950's, yet we still had the same problems, even though these problems should be greatly reduced if people actually followed what they said they believed. The point being, that piousness is not perhaps the best measure of the morality of a society.

> In other words: society shamed evil and evildoers. How is a society which embraces evil more moral > than one which shames it?Someone else used the same defense. I don't know the answer, I am not a believer, but the essence of your argument is that God is happier, or you are more moral, if you have shame while doing immoral things. A Catholic woman who secretly has an abortion is no more or less moral because she goes to church and claims to be pro-life, the way I see it. Perhaps someone with more theological weight can explain how shame/ridicule makes up for moral failings.

> The facts we have so far do not concur.Really you haven't made any attempt to counter anything. Relying on anecdotal evidence or some such other data point is not helpful. The data shows that the post-World War II era had largely the same problems we have now, in similar rates of murder, unwed pregnancy, and abortion. However, the 1950's is also stained with repulsive racial violence, segregation, tension and hatred.

> If by "very bad" you mean "well above previous norms" then it was "very bad" until about 2001.What are the goal posts? If we want to move them I would very likely change my conclusion.

> Curious that nobody has false nostalgia about the economies of the 1930's and late 1970's; World War > II; or the Korean and Vietnam wars. I never heard my grandparents talk about how much wealthier they > wereThat's odd, I think it all depends on who you are. The 1970's was a watershed for my family, with several of my aunts entering the workforce towards the end of the decade, and getting non-menial jobs for the first time. Several family members returned from Vietnam and went to college and went on to be professionals. All of my uncles talk about the great cars they had, and the music, and the girls. So I don't think anecdotes are all that useful for this discussion. On paper, the end of the 1970's was a very bad time for America.

> Why do you think that false nostalgia is the reason older generations think morality was higher in > the 1950's? Especially when the data presented thus far seems to concur with the idea that morality > has actually decreased.I don't agree with that conclusion on the data. I view the last 10 years to be statistically similar to the 1950-1960 period. There are certainly cycles that flow through the data, but I don't see where we are and where we came from as all that different, except that people "think" it's very much worse now than it used to be. Gut feeling on my part, I think part of it is that we don't sweep things under the rugs like the baby boomers or their predecessors. And we have a lot more "Jerry Springer" type visibility into the dysfunction of our families and culture. For me, I don't view that sort of garbage media that comes out today to be any worse than the garbage media that came out in 1950-60, either. I mean, the objective standards have changed, but the point was still to shock and push the limits, and that has not changed at all.

> Aren't confession and repentance essentially feeling shame for breaking His laws, and wishing to > change? If God does not grant a reprieve to those who feel shame and therefore confess, who among > us is to be saved? Will God save instead the person who commits their sin and boasts about it?I have no idea, maybe some who knows can answer. I do think the amount of shame heaped on those who step outside the bounds of acceptability has little to do with how moral a society is. If the behavior is still occurring, then it likely suggests that shame is nothing but hypocrisy played out.

If that's the goal post - how much shame do we place on people who make bad decisions, than I would probably change my conclusion that the 1950's has us beat hands down in the shame department.

There was a study done a few years ago that looked serous assaults instead of murder rate. Turns out besides part of the 90s violent assaults have been going up year after year. Medical tech and cell phones caused most of the decline in murder. In 1950s a flash mob beating was or getting shot was pretty likely to be fatal. Today you have an excellent chance of living even if you are permanently brain damaged.

If you want to know about crime ask this question: Can you leave your car unlocked or valuables visible with in your car. In 1950s america very few cars needed to be locked and smash and grabs where very rare. Today all but the richest or most rural of areas need to be locked up tight with valuables hidden away.

> This isn't the case, did you see my post on church attendance? The rates appear to be holding steady > since the 30s in the US.

JartStar, I did not see this until you just pointed it out. That's a startling piece of information, because it is not what I expected.

I had previously followed Pew's numbers, http://www.pewforum.org/Unaffiliated/nones-on-the-rise.aspx, which shows almost identical numbers, but I believed that the trend was strong enough to suggest it had been falling. Many years ago when I studied early American life, colonial to Revolutionary war, Church attendance in some of the colonies was compulsory. I am not sure when that went off track, but I believed it was around the Civil War-era. I will try to see what I can find on that shortly.

> If you want to know about crime ask this question: Can you leave your car unlocked or valuables > visible with in your car. In 1950s america very few cars needed to be locked and smash and grabs > where very rare. Today all but the richest or most rural of areas need to be locked up tight with > valuables hidden away.

Again, I don't think this is data supported. I don't lock my home, or my car, and don't particularly hide my valuables, and I live in a very populated and "urban" area.

I do think the other premise about survivability is interesting. Perhaps it's medical technology that has reduced the murder rate.

> This is where I realized that you are either stupid or disingenuous. Or both. Probably both.

I am not being either. The way it's presented is that porn is STUFFED IN YOUR FACE. It is "available" to adults who want to consume, but to a well-attended child it has the same availability today as in 1950-60, which is to say, it's not available.

If we want to move the goal posts and say what is available to people who seek, which is really a question of "accessibility", then by all means, we can change that perspective.

Boner needs to grow a spine and tell little Timmy no debt ceiling increase ever - and let Timmy go cry in the corner. Fedgov can find a way to get by on the 2.3+ trillion that it takes in - that is plenty enough wealth spreading.

The 91% thing is pure class warfare junk. No matter how you monkey with the rates, tax revenue will always be around 18% of GDP. All Krug's insanity would accomplish is lowering GDP and thus tax revenue.

Just knowing people like this control our economic destiny makes me want to grab the gold and guns and head for the hills. As Ron Paul has recently stated, we are already over the cliff.

(sorry for the hijack - please continue the engaging discussion of crime stats from various decades - I am sure somebody cares)

He is well versed in "America's sins of greed and imperialism" so he chooses to argue that today's tyrants are 'not as bad'.

I defy you to find where I said today is not as bad. I said 1950 was every bit as bad, which is a big difference.

It's a little worse today, anyways, because the bringers of death don't have to do it in person, face to face or what have you, like in the earlier days of illegal killing. The fact that it's all 100% risk free for those ordering the death from above makes it, in my view, more morally fraught.

I find it hard to say that J. Edgar Hoover was any worse or better than Pres. Obama and Gen Petraus raining down death on civilians and alleged criminals alike.

Defending an invasion? The US was invaded? The US was not invaded of course, it was a war not about US interests, but about foreign interests, in which our soldiers and many others were political pawns. It was, of course, an immoral and unjust war for the US to be involved in, and was not properly authorized by Congress anymore than what Obama is doing now.

The Korean peninsula was ruled by Japan until Japan's defeat at the end of World War II. We divided the administration of the post war peninsula with the Soviet Union, the allied power most involved with us in the Pacific theater. At the time we were still involved with the administration of the South Korean government, still had some troops there, and South Korea was most definitely still a U.S. ally and interest.

Your accusations, with the exception of the failure of the U.S. government to obtain proper Congressional authorization, are false and are ignorant of the historical context of the war. Further, there is nothing immoral or unjust about helping an ally defend against an invasion.

If you want to stick domestically, you had the FBI running counter-intelligence operations, including COINTELPRO, from 1956 to 1971, which was the exact same type of lawless, illicit, and shameful behaviour that Pres. Obama is involved in with drones.

I would argue that a president doing it in the open, claiming it is perfectly legal, and getting away with it is worse than an intelligence agency doing it in secret.

> False. The level of porn available today on movie channels would have required a trip to an adult> theater or a private home showing as recently as the early 1980's. The porn available on the> Internet today would have been extremely rare, if produced at all, in the 1950's and 1960's.

Availability to adults and availability to children is not the same thing. A child with access to over the air TV, the same as 1950, has the same or less access to porn as always, which is zero.

You are conveniently ignoring the fact that the majority of children and teenagers have access to subscription television and the Internet.

The fact that adults have access to it, or grant it to children, is that what the real complaint is?

The quantity, quality, and consumption of porn all point to a decline in moral standards and sexual norms.

"....but to a well-attended child it has the same availability today as in 1950-60, which is to say, it's not available."

This has to be bull. Where was porn available in the 50-60s? A few clicks away?on smartphones? As for "well attended" what with both mummy and daddy or daddy and daddy working now, how can this be true?

Must be why Cameron in the UK wants to force the population to opt into filtering if children present in the house.

Getting back to Krugman wanting a 91% tax rate, I say let them do it. F**k the rich. They have run this country into the toilet. So as long as folks like Krugman and others have to cough up 91% in taxes, great. This is their nation now and the faster they run it into the ground, the sooner the next phase can begin.

dh - It appears to be because the in the past people who never attend nominally claimed to be part of the civil religion, but now they no longer care to make the claim. In the Pew study you cited it deals with the Infrequent Churchgoers, not the population at large.

Self identification in religion is one of the toughest things to deal with, but by and large the best data of who's really committed is weekly attendance.

I have read accounts of the early settlement of the West. Whoring, killing, drug use, you had it all there. Yet it is one of the most celebrated times in our mythology. Heck, even in Nebraska there is a long memory of the various range wars between farmers and Ranchers (Vox, take a look at it some time and boil it down through the lense of libertarianism). You had open killings outside of the law as late as the 1900's (actually even up to today if you know where to look).

The rot comes and goes. We had an Awakening, and may have one again. Honestly the trend on abortion is something that is very interesting to me. I am old enough to remember it celebrated in every sitcom and movie, and now you have seen it swing the other way.

But in the end, it doesn't matter. The decendents of the Hispanics will be debating over what killed Anglo society hundreds of years from now. The West is near the end, and honestly was over the cliff long before any of us were born.

Save what and who you can. Be aware though that the path ahead will not be pretty for anyone.

It's a little worse today, anyways, because the bringers of death don't have to do it in person, face to face or what have you, like in the earlier days of illegal killing. The fact that it's all 100% risk free for those ordering the death from above makes it, in my view, more morally fraught.Look up Curtis LeMay. For that matter, look up the Maxim gun or the inovation of the American Rebels aiming for officers.

When tactics or weapons change, the first one gets a huge advantage. But adaptation comes quickly

From the study - By comparison, the percentage describing themselves as unaffiliated has been flat among those who attend religious services once a week or more often.

There likely has been a slight move down in people attending (I'm thinking of the yearly trip by some for Christmas or Easter but had little devotion), but overall the same percentage of people who attend has remained constant.

This undermines the idea purported by many Christians that the US used to be a "Christian Nation" in the last 100 years. It simply isn't true beyond lip service paid to civil religion.

> This has to be bull. Where was porn available in the 50-60s? A few clicks away?> on smartphones? As for "well attended" what with both mummy and daddy or daddy and daddy working now, > how can this be true?

Porn was certainly available in 50s-60s. It wasn't a few clicks. A well-attended child today has no more access than anytime in the past.

dh - It appears to be because the in the past people who never attend nominally claimed to be part of the civil religion, but now they no longer care to make the claim. In the Pew study you cited it deals with the Infrequent Churchgoers, not the population at large. I basically agree with this, but I dont know where data comes from to support it. The sort of view I see formulating is that in the past there were more people who say they attended, but in fact, they were just saying it to get along. Whereas now, you don't have to pretend - there isn't really any stigma for not attending.

I am not being either. The way it's presented is that porn is STUFFED IN YOUR FACE. It is "available" to adults who want to consume, but to a well-attended child it has the same availability today as in 1950-60, which is to say, it's not available.

Moron, it's more available because there is way more content and children are not well attended.

I basically agree with this, but I dont know where data comes from to support it. The sort of view I see formulating is that in the past there were more people who say they attended, but in fact, they were just saying it to get along. Whereas now, you don't have to pretend - there isn't really any stigma for not attending.

This is what the study you linked to suggests and I agree with this. People just went along to get along.

And I am not sure what this does to correlate belief and attendance.

1. Given the above it means there's approximately the same percentage of believers today as 80 years ago. 2. People lie and continue to lie about attending regular services.3. When people attend weekly research shows it does have an effect on behavior in positive ways and so it is reasonable to conclude that weekly attendance means people are taking their beliefs seriously and "walking the walk".

To be sure there is an absolute direct, positive, correlation between weekly attendance and behavior and even success in life.

Well, first, if we are going to move goal posts, let's just do that: "There are FAR more murders today than back in those supposedly dark days when". That is clearly false. Murder rates are not "FAR HIGHER".

Those are not my words, and I did not move the goal posts. The general topic is whether or not "We are, morally, a much better nation than we were." Level of crime is one way to measure this. Crime includes much more than just the murder rate.

When we look at "crime", I think it's instructive to compare what was a crime then, and now. Do really want to compare "rape standards" from 1950-60 with rape standards 2000 and on?

According to this link the definition of rape used by the FBI in compiling the Uniform Crime Report has not changed since the 1920's. Is this incorrect? Do you have a source documenting other changes?http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/12/fbi-to-change-definition-of-forcible-rape/

You can argue that some fraction of the increase in rape is due to a greater willingness to report rape. But the entire change? And what would invalidate the other categories?

In other terms, data for others that you mention as crime have been tinkered with over time, including by legislation new classes of crime not previously recorded.

You're misrepresenting what has changed. The core category definitions have remained very much the same. New crime categories are added to the report, not added to the existing categories. No doubt there's some play in reporting standards over time, but certainly not enough to explain away the changes observed.

Be fair, goal posts are moving again. From the time period that was initially discussed, we now want to compare the 1970s or 1980s?

Goal posts have not moved. We are discussing indicators of the nation's morality over time, not specific indicators in two or three specific years only.

My proposition was supposed to be that, church attendance was closer to universal in the 1950's, yet we still had the same problems, even though these problems should be greatly reduced if people actually followed what they said they believed.

But the data shows that we didn't have the same problems.

I don't know the answer, I am not a believer, but the essence of your argument is that God is happier, or you are more moral, if you have shame while doing immoral things. A Catholic woman who secretly has an abortion is no more or less moral because she goes to church and claims to be pro-life, the way I see it.

Which person is more likely to change their behavior and avoid repeating an immoral act: one who feels shame over it, or one who does not?

Which person is more likely to influence others away from an immoral act they themselves have committed or are committing: one who feels shame over it, or one who does not?

> The facts we have so far do not concur.Really you haven't made any attempt to counter anything. Relying on anecdotal evidence or some such other data point is not helpful.

What are you talking about? I gave a more accurate description of the abortion data you linked to; searched for crime statistics; and posted a link to UCR tables covering the major (Part I) categories of crime.

The data shows that the post-World War II era had largely the same problems we have now, in similar rates of murder, unwed pregnancy, and abortion.

Will one of the Ilk check our posts and links and make a call on this one? The problems that plague us have plagued mankind since the fall. But I see a general increase in the rates over time since the early 1960's. What do you see?

However, the 1950's is also stained with repulsive racial violence, segregation, tension and hatred.

I'm not sure the levels are any better today. The target races have merely changed.

I might add that people do continue to lie about this, but at a much reduced rate which explains the increase in no affiliation amongst the people who never went in the first place.

As a Christian I'm glad about this shift as it undermines Christianity when people who claim to be Christians but never show any devotion act badly. They can no longer propose their anti-Christian immoral ways under the guise of some flimsy Christianity.

> Those are not my words, and I did not move the goal posts. The general topic is whether or not "We > are, morally, a much better nation than we were." Level of crime is one way to measure this. Crime > includes much more than just the murder rate.

Well I appreciate this. I was responding to a post that cited all crime, murder, and abortion, and a specific time period from the original article. I don't have an opinion on the general topic you mention.

> But the data shows that we didn't have the same problems.

Murder, abortion - it does. Expanding the playing field to include all crime, the data sure is different.

> Which person is more likely to change their behavior and avoid repeating an immoral act: one who > feels shame over it, or one who does not?

I don't think it matters. In fact, once you are shamed, then what is holding you back from doing it again?

> Which person is more likely to influence others away from an immoral act they themselves have > committed or are committing: one who feels shame over it, or one who does not?

I don't think it matters.

> I'm not sure the levels are any better today. The target races have merely changed.

The difference is in legality. The status quo of the 1950's was morally stained, which was to codify racial bigotry and segregation. We may be just as segregated now, but it's not the law of the land, and individuals are free to chose with whom they are permitted to associate more freely. I view it is a minor but important difference. Even if people are not truly equal by group, class, and race it doesn't mean we should codify discrimination and segregation.

> What are you talking about? I gave a more accurate description of the abortion data you linked to; > searched for crime statistics; and posted a link to UCR tables covering the major (Part I) > categories of crime.

I agree, I think we are just focusing on other items. I conceded that the time period had lower other crime rates, but the original comparison was a subset of indicator (murder, abortion, pregnancy).

I read Krudman's column before I came over here to check VD. PK has many sycophants fawning all over him. They address him as "Professor". I assume they do that to cloak him with an air of unassailable dominance.

Anyway, with regards to the article picture of him, he should be clothed in a Maoist beige jacket. He has a Ernst Stavro Blofeld malevolence as he strokes his companion pussy cat. Then i would assume he would have Peta on his side as well.

> Why do you think that false nostalgia is the reason older generations think morality was higher in> the 1950's? Especially when the data presented thus far seems to concur with the idea that morality > has actually decreased.I don't agree with that conclusion on the data. I view the last 10 years to be statistically similar to the 1950-1960 period.

The online UCR sources date from 1960. Every major crime category except murder is higher today than in 1960.

Do you have the UCR table for 1950-1959? If not, on what basis do you assume that crime was worse in the 1950's than the 1960's and therefore comparable to today?

If the data concurs with the idea that morality has declined, then there's no point discussing why older generations feel that way. If the data does not concur, then we can discuss whether or not it's "false nostalgia."

Based on the crime statistics sitting on my monitor, I would have to say that the idea that America was a more moral and safer place in the 50's/60's is at least partially based on fact.

"The status quo of the 1950's was morally stained, which was to codify racial bigotry and segregation. We may be just as segregated now, but it's not the law of the land, and individuals are free to chose with whom they are permitted to associate more freely."

People have no right of free association in America, because to have that right means to EXCLUDE others.

Do you not understand why desegregation led to white flight and the creation of the suburbs?

And I'm shocked anyone still believes segregation was at all morally stained. We have hundreds of abandoned cities, completely destroyed by your "morality".

Krugman also doesn't mention how rebuilding from WWII may have had a slight effect on the economy of the 1950's. Not to mention the difference in an economy of families where one earner was sufficient, compared to our current of economy where two earners don't even make the grade....

> Which person is more likely to change their behavior and avoid repeating an immoral act: one who> feels shame over it, or one who does not?

I don't think it matters. In fact, once you are shamed, then what is holding you back from doing it again?

> Which person is more likely to influence others away from an immoral act they themselves have> committed or are committing: one who feels shame over it, or one who does not?

I don't think it matters.

Can I get a definition of "shame" from you? I'm not being sarcastic. I don't think we are speaking of the same thing when we say "shame".

The difference is in legality. The status quo of the 1950's was morally stained, which was to codify racial bigotry and segregation. We may be just as segregated now, but it's not the law of the land, and individuals are free to chose with whom they are permitted to associate more freely.

First point: you're now in the position of arguing that how a society views behavior is worthy of consideration, not just the behavior rates. I would agree, but earlier you said it didn't matter.

Second point: I would argue that racial bigotry is very much still the law of the land, just in different forms and with different racial targets. I would also argue that individuals are actually less free to chose with whom they associate with. The targets of the law have merely changed.

Even if people are not truly equal by group, class, and race it doesn't mean we should codify discrimination and segregation.

"..the story of the Great COMPRESSION is a powerful antidote to fatalism, a demonstration that political reform can create a more equitable distribution of income - and, in the process, create a healthier climate for democracy.Let me expand on that a bit. In the thirties, as today, a key line of conservative defense against demands to do something about inequality was the claim that nothing can be done - that is, the claim that no policies can appreciably raise the share of national income going to working families, or at least none can do so without wreaking the economy. Yet somehow Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman managed to preside over e the dramatic downward redistribution of income and wealth that made Americans far more equal than before - and not only wasn't the economy wreaked by this redistribution, the Great Compression set the state for a great generation-long economic boom. If they could do it then, we should be able to repeat their achievement."

This is a man that doesn't recognized the Depression and is demanding Obama repeat it. Seems so far to be working.

BTW, I calculated the taxes due for our current income brackets using the 1960 tax rates (married):

Many people argue for a return to the marginal tax rates of the 50's and 60's to solve our taxation problem. They would be right. Based on my calculations, the 1960 tax rates applied to the current incomes would generate $4.7trillion in revenue, completely funding the entire government with no need for social security, medicare or business income taxes. But. They might want to consider the impact on those earning under $40,000 a year.

We may be just as segregated now, but it's not the law of the land, and individuals are free to chose with whom they are permitted to associate more freely. I view it is a minor but important difference.

You have it backwards. De jure segregation only existed in about a dozen Southern states when the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed. That law and the 1968 Civil Rights Act (mainly about housing)ended freedom of association in the US.

The elite who hate you, who are waging an economic war against you and a campaign of ethnic replacement, would be destroyed if we had these kinds of taxes. "

Krugman is one of those guys waging economic war on us. A 97% tax rate is there to prevent new people from becoming rich while keeping the existing rich free from competition. If you or he was really serious about limited the rich you all would eliminate deductions from the tax system. Deductions of any type are universally used keep existing wealth whole and to prevent the full burden of taxation to be felt by everyone. Taxing gross income is the only fair type of income tax.

Of course if you eliminated deductions the entire left would be defended and collapse.

Serge Tomiko wrote: "Why on earth would any civilized person wish to allow anyone in their community to earn more money than that? Especially when the only way to do so is via exploitation, legal or illegal."

Why on earth is it up to the rest of us to determine what someone is allowed to earn? Not to be disrespectful, but I honestly do not understand your point of view.

dh: individuals are free to chose with whom they are permitted to associate more freely.

Comedy gold.

Let's say I choose to open on my own private property a lunch counter, and that I further choose to only associate with white people at said lunch counter.

A word exists for the sort of person who claims that I more free to do this now than I was in 1960. That word is fool.

Freedom of association was destroyed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and subsequent case and statutory law. Any country in which the right of people to keep anyone they goddamn well please off their own private property is not a free country in any sense.

And as for taxes: when Paul Krugman earns 91% of my income, he can have 91% of it in taxes. Income taxation is theft.

Serge Tomiko wrote: "Why on earth would any civilized person wish to allow anyone in their community to earn more money than that? Especially when the only way to do so is via exploitation, legal or illegal.

"Why on earth is it up to the rest of us to determine what someone is allowed to earn? Not to be disrespectful, but I honestly do not understand your point of view.

Its simple. He wants someone else to pay for the crack he needs to be on to do economic analysis.

We are we omitting ages 13 and 14, and why are we including ages 18 and 19?

It's a great example of liberal dishonesty: 18 and 19 are "teen" numbers, so we'll include them in our category of "teen"agers. Sorry, those aged 18 and 19 are not teenagers, they are adults. And it's important, because in 1960, it still was common for a woman to be married at 18, and having a second child before turning 20. So a bulk of the "teen" pregnancies in 1960 were to married 18- and 19-yearolds who planned to have children. And pregnancy to 13- and 14-yearolds was almost unheard of in 1960, while it's certainly more common today. What are the numbers for actual teenagers - age 13 to 17?

In an attempt to reduce the country's bloated stock of unsold homes, the government is set to offer permanent residency to any foreigner provided they buy a house or apartment worth more than (EURO)160,000 ($200,000). However, Latvia on the Baltic coast offers a cheaper deal, with property buyers eligible to receive residency permits if they purchase real estate in the capital Riga worth (EURO)140,000 or (EURO)70,000 in the countryside.

As for crime, the rates don't always reflect the threat. More people carry handguns, which has been shown to reduce overall crime (sort of a herd immunity effect). There are more gated communities. People "cocoon" themselves by shopping on line, avoiding certain parts of town, renting movies, etc. More people take self defense classes and practice situational awareness.

We keep ourselves safe, but at great cost to our quality of life. Liberals would point to the reduced crime rate (relative to the 1990s) and say all these measures aren't necessary. But the reduced crime rate came, in part, BECAUSE of these behaviors.

Crime is also down because of Three Strikes and other harsher sentencing laws. And its "down" because many major cities have been caught falsifying crime reports. Rapes become assaults, robberies become no-fault altercations, thefts become missing property, unsolved homicides become accidental deaths.

And let's not forget about the Baby Boomers moving through the age range. As the percent of the population age 15 to 40 swelled, crime rates went up. When the Baby Boomers passed through that range, crime rates went down. But they went up by more than the BBs alone can explain, and they didn't go down to pre-BB levels.

BTW, I calculated the taxes due for our current income brackets using the 1960 tax rates (married)

Well, if you take into consideration that the purchasing power of $1.00 in 1960 would be equal to roughly $7.61 today that change your tax brackets and move your 20% tax bracket up from $4,000 to around the $30,000 mark and your 30% tax bracket from $28,000 up to around the $200,000/year income level.

Its amazing how one can lie with the truth.I take extreme exception to that accusation, especially since I went out of my way to point out that the numbers for 15 year olds and under is available, and shows the same trend.

The numbers for those 15 and under - which even in 1960 would include virtually none that are married, show the same trend line.

I agree I wish I had data broken out by age. I just don't have it. And I agree that it would be better if the data was only unwed pregnancies, but again, I just don't have it. Most of the data is culled from demographic data, not from social research data, so again, it's not always possible to have what you want. If you have another source, I am happy to re-evaluate.

But either way, again, the trend for those 15 and under was exactly the same - we are at or very near parity with 1950-1960 and 2000-2010. For pregnancies and abortions 15 and under, as well as over.

So a bulk of the "teen" pregnancies in 1960 were to married 18- and 19-yearolds who planned to haveAnd this is the flip side, where-in not having any data to support this, you just make up an assertion. You have no idea if "the bulk" of these pregnancies were married or not, intended or not, or otherwise. Even in 1960, the "bulk" of 18 year old girls were graduating high-school. I am sure many did get married, and immediately conceived, and gave birth shortly before or after turning 19. But it is a long journey from being possible to being "the bulk".

Let's say I choose to open on my own private property a lunch counter, and that I further choose to only associate with white people at said lunch counter.If you operate a public accommodation the Supreme Court says it's all different. You must take all comers. On the other hand, if it really is a "private lunch counter", and not a public accommodation, you can to this very day exclude blacks, women, gays, anyone you want. As a private membership organization. When you say a "private property lunch counter", I think we all know you mean you want a restaurant you keep blacks out of. So just say what you mean.

A word exists for the sort of person who claims that I more free to do this now than I was in 1960. That word is fool.I strongly suspect you are white. And middle class or above, which brings us all the way back to the beginning, in which 1960's America was probably pretty good place to live if you were white, northern, upper middle class. In fact, there aren't all that many periods in American history when that's been a nasty way to live. If you were poor, poor & black, a women, a poor black woman, or some combination of those, life in the US, especially southern and parts of the western US, was deeply unpleasant.

At that time, it was very clear that you did not have the right of free association. You could not select a martial partner without government oversight, you could not do certain business transactions with partners of your choosing, you could not vote in a certain manner.

Freedom of association was destroyed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and subsequent case and statutory law. Any country in which the right of people to keep anyone they goddamn well please off their own private property is not a free country in any sense.Unfortunately for you, the Supreme Court and Congress have a different view, which is that private property and personal associations are freely able to be decided, but that those making a public accommodation must honor the precept of universal service.

And as for taxes: when Paul Krugman earns 91% of my income, he can have 91% of it in taxes. Income taxation is theft.Sure, whatever. No one is arguing with it. It's funny how you are so enraged to think you were more free in 1960 when your 91% of income was absconded with, but today, when we are talking about changing that same rate from 35% to 39%, it's a complete breakdown and return to communism or Marxist collectivism. Absurd, really. If you are willing to pay 35%, than it's a small intellectual leap to being required to pay 91%.

Crime is also down because of Three Strikes and other harsher sentencing laws. And its "down" because many major cities have been caught falsifying crime reports. Rapes become assaults, robberies become no-fault altercations, thefts become missing property, unsolved homicides become accidental deaths.I think focusing on murder is a relatively stable metric, because whatever their faults, police have almost uniformly tended to take murder seriously. Yes, it has been done that it's been converted from murder to an unattended death, but by and large, the national standard is that murder cases are treated with vigor.

The one thing I had thought of today was if medical technology has played any part in the reduction of murder rates. I should very much like to find a way to figure out if the fact that more people are surviving serious injuries that previously would have resulted in death and therefore murder. This is a very interesting topic of thought and it has the ability to influence my conclusions that the "golden age" was not very much different from today.

Which would only leave the poor bastard 360K to pay state and municipal and consumption taxes.

I just thought it should be adjusted for inflation. If we must be taxed, I think a sales tax would be more fair. The more you spend, the more you pay. Of course, they would end up plugging in all sorts of exemptions for the investment class and special interest groups which would make it FUBAR.

dh: The one thing I had thought of today was if medical technology has played any part in the reduction of murder rates. I should very much like to find a way to figure out if the fact that more people are surviving serious injuries that previously would have resulted in death and therefore murder. This is a very interesting topic of thought and it has the ability to influence my conclusions that the "golden age" was not very much different from today.

You might also consider the difference in incarceration rates as a factor. If you lock up the X% most violent (even on some trumped up charges such as marijuana possession), murder rates will tend to go down.

As for morality, instead of stats, why not just look at 70yr olds compared to 30yr olds and see which group strikes you as more moral?

I just thought it should be adjusted for inflation. If we must be taxed, I think a sales tax would be more fair.

Just a bit of tongue in cheek there on my part, IM2L844. We have consumption taxes in Canada. The rich like it because they don't even notice it, but it takes a bigger bite out of the poor in terms of percentage of income spent on consumption.

I'm all for it. Let the indigent give back some of that free food stamp lolly. Less disposable income for drugs, and no easy way to avoid it.

I think focusing on murder is a relatively stable metric, because whatever their faults, police have almost uniformly tended to take murder seriously. Yes, it has been done that it's been converted from murder to an unattended death, but by and large, the national standard is that murder cases are treated with vigor.

This is a bunch of assumptions with no proof in an attempt to salvage your point.

Further, you're contradicting yourself here by saying that cops have always been serious about murder but earlier claiming the people of the 50's (cops included presumably) were less moral and more racist.

"Christian charity and what it means to be your brothers keeper..." -dh

Did you know Cain was being a smartass when he uttered that line about being his "brother's keeper." Cain murdered Abel by-the-way, is that the kind of "keeping" you're talking about. Not a very strong case for your defense of modern morality.

Were children in the black community born out-of-wedlock in the 70% range 50 years ago? 29% for whitey? Nope, back in the 60's it was 14% and 2% respectively. A real modern moral triumph.

Discrimination is only illegal when it is levied against a protected class. The sexually deviant are not a protected class yet. You can legally discriminate against people who, in your opinion, are dressed funny, people who strike you as obnoxious or people you just don't think are pretty enough. You are certainly not required to take all comers.

The UCR actually started in the 1920's, and was codified in law during the 1930's. I believe that, in general, the data is not always online available before that time period because it has not been transcribed from various tabulated and printed sources.

The online UCR sources date from 1960. Every major crime category except murder is higher today than in 1960.My supposition is that crime reporting and metrics for other categories suffer from many problems that make direct comparison difficult. Congress has tinkered with those defintions, as have reporting standards. Recently - since the 1980's, there is pressure on police to play with those numbers, and I so I don't place that much stock in them.

I do suppose that murder is a useful comparison, because it has almost always been taken as seriously throughout the target time period. They are relatively unlikely to be falsely reported, or swept under the rug, and they are almost always followed-up upon.

1960's and therefore comparable to today?I am basing the moral comparison on 3 primary data points: murder, presumably unwed pregnancies, and abortions, based on another posters claims. Based on these data points, I see near parity with some small variations for periodic cycling. I am extrapolating slightly to supposed that 1959 was similar to 1960, so that we can include some of the exact target years (i.e. the 1950's).

I have also put out a few other metrics, which is based on the governments immoral actions overseas, domestically, and covertly. It is my view that what our actions were in 1950's-1960's were just as bad as they are now, if not worse. It is not an argument that we are very moral now, but rather, one that the 1950's to 1960's was not really all that it is often cracked up to be.

Your accusations, with the exception of the failure of the U.S. government to obtain proper Congressional authorization, are false and are ignorant of the historical context of the war. Further, there is nothing immoral or unjust about helping an ally defend against an invasion.Of course there is. We had no interest in South Korea. It was a political proxy war. Secondly, the war was unjust because it was the first major conflict where the Constitutional separation of war powers was ignored and trampled on. It is the template for all illegal American wars since. With no Congressional declaration of war, and Congress not stepping in to block the war, the precedent was set that remains to this day - the "Commander in Chief" is the same thing as the President, and that in times of peace the "Commander in Chief" can utilize the military in whatever fashion he deems fit.

I would argue that a president doing it in the open, claiming it is perfectly legal, and getting away with it is worse than an intelligence agency doing it in secret.This may be a logical argument, but not a moral one. The question of whether the act is moral or not is largely moot on whether it is secret or not. It is just as easy to argue that because the action is open, it is more likely moral than not. Either way, since Congress won't act to block it, and because of the precedent set in Korea, the act is presumed to be legal. Hence the vast problem with Korea.

You are conveniently ignoring the fact that the majority of children and teenagers have access to subscription television and the Internet....The quantity, quality, and consumption of porn all point to a decline in moral standards and sexual norms.That is a new goal post, one I have no opinion on. It could be useful to examine the sexual norms of the 1960's to now, and see what they say about society as a whole.

> This is a bunch of assumptions with no proof in an attempt to salvage your point.

I would just point out in my defense I did not raise the initial point of comparison. I am open to other goal posts, I just don't see that we have acceptable data to use. The UCR is clearly not going to work.

Further, you're contradicting yourself here by saying that cops have always been serious about murder but earlier claiming the people of the 50's (cops included presumably) were less moral and more racist.The only standard we need to consider is whether or not the moral standards of the 1950's and 1960's would facilitate not reporting a murder as a murder. I did leave some room to suppose that some murders would be under-reported, but even given that, we are not talking about changes that will move the needle on the murder rate person thousand people. The seriousness that the police have almost always placed on murder makes it a very good data point to compare, in my view.

This is perhaps the best way to get at it, which I had not thought of:

As for morality, instead of stats, why not just look at 70yr olds compared to 30yr olds and see which group strikes you as more moral?It's not really "which strikes me", because I know a lot of elderly scumbags who would be the same scumbags they've always been, just they now have less opportunity. But if age variation in crime rates could be controlled for, this could be a useful metric to consider.

I have to go unfortunately for a bit, I have really enjoyed this back and forth. A really interesting side bar to my day.

I probably have failed to convince anyone, but I have long viewed the way people look at the 1950's and a chunk of the 1960's (typically until the Kennedy assassination) as full of "false nostalgia". In my personal experience it's always been from middle or upper-middle class who remember a time without racial tension, institutionalized bigotry and violence, and without poverty, gangs, organized crime, or abortions. It's a time period where no one remembers that 15 year old girl that went away for summer break and never came back, or the 13-year old boy who went to boys town and was never heard of again.

It's also a time period when the country really started off the rails of the military industrial complex. Instead of ramping down from the end of World War II, we doubled down on the permanent war state, created the beginnings of the national security state, and left domestic agencies run absolutely unchecked through America, terrorizing those with minority and unusual view points, politics, affiliations and beliefs.

At the same time, institutions such as the Catholic Church (and others) failed, and began it's sick and twisted decline in sexual abuse and coverup. Politically, those who were not mainstream were scared and afraid of being painted as "red".

Finally, the entire moral basis of the country was stained. We can all agree - and I think most here do - that desegregation has failed, that people tend to want to re-segregate according to race, and that political correctness has failed to be a useful policy. On the other hand, the level of racial violence, intolerance, and disharmony was very high, maybe the highest it ever has been in the country. Especially in some areas on the country, it was very uncomfortable, and often dangerous, to be anything other than a "gamma" minority. Whatever people should do, I don't believe government is mechanism to separate and segregate America into racial classes, with one class favored above all others.

"I don't believe government is mechanism to separate and segregate America into racial classes, with one class favored above all others."

Of course you're right. Once a nation becomes divided to the point where there are two distinct and distinguishable classes, racial or otherwise, it is time for that nation to separate (peaceably if possible)and form two separate nations with their own governments which reflect the will and characteristics of those nations. What we have now is unnatural and won't last as such.

but it takes a bigger bite out of the poor in terms of percentage of income spent on consumption.

Can people below the poverty line file for a return at the end of the year?

Or, hey , I have it. We can put invisible ink (UV) tattoos of a bar code on everybody's forehead or in their right hand and scan it at the store when they buy something. Without it, nobody can buy or sell anything. What's wrong with that?

If you operate a public accommodation the Supreme Court says it's all different. You must take all comers.

If I "must take all comers", I have no freedom of association. QED. Thank you for making my point for me.

On the other hand, if it really is a "private lunch counter", and not a public accommodation, you can to this very day exclude blacks, women, gays, anyone you want.

Not true, because of the Commerce Clause, which is the all-purpose legal wonder weapon the federal entity uses to deny Americans their freedom of voluntary association. Case law is full of examples of this. In the most famous, Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States [379 U.S. 241 (1964)], the federal court ruled that the owner of the motel's refusal to accept blacks as customers "severely interfered with interstate travel", and that forcing the owner of a privately owned inn to accommodate those whom he did not wish to accommodate did not constitute the "taking" of property without just compensation or due process of law. Then, in Daniel v. Paul [395 U.S. 298 (1969)], our imperial masters at the federal appeals court ruled that the federal entity could force a private, members-only recreational facility (a swimming pond) to admit blacks. Why? Because three out of the four items sold at its snack bar were purchased from outside the state. and therefore the swimming pond owners were engaging in interstate commerce. Under § 201(c), a place of public accommodation [per U. S. 299] affects interstate commerce if "(2). . . [it is an establishment described in § 201(b)(2) and] serves or offers to serve interstate travelers or a substantial portion of the food it serves . . . has moved in commerce; (3) [it is an establishment described in § 201(b)(3) and] customarily presents films, performances, . . . or other sources of entertainment which move in commerce;" or "(4) [it is an establishment described in § 201(b)(4) and] there is physically located within its premises, an establishment the operations of which affect commerce. . . ."

It turned out that the snack bar at the ol' swimmin' hole sold soda that was made from syrup that was shipped in from an adjoining state. Therefore (the court ruled) their swimming pond was a "public place of accommodation" under Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and had to let in Negroes.

The owners shut the place down soon after, and I don't blame them.

But this isn't news to anyone, least of all to you. You know very well that under the Commerce Clause standard no such thing as a "private place of accommodation" can exist. The federal entity can therefore force the owner of any private business to accept customers he does not wish to accept.

And when the federal entity can force the owner of a private business to accept customers he does not wish to accept, any freedom of association ceases to exist.

When you say a "private property lunch counter", I think we all know you mean you want a restaurant you keep blacks out of.

Diabolically clever, Holmes! Once again, I stand in awe of your deducative prowess. I do, in fact, want to restore freedom of association to white people who want to open a whites-only restaurant. I also want the black owner of a barber shop to be able to refuse service to whites if he wishes. What I want is freedom of association on private property. For everybody.

I am. Do you have a problem with that? I strongly suspect you hate white people.

And middle class or above, which brings us all the way back to the beginning, in which 1960's America was probably pretty good place to live if you were white, northern, upper middle class. In fact, there aren't all that many periods in American history when that's been a nasty way to live.

Yes, and it's no accident that pre-1964 America was pretty good place to live. It's because white, middle-class people tend to create societies that are pretty good places to live.

If you were poor, poor & black, a women, a poor black woman, or some combination of those, life in the US, especially southern and parts of the western US, was deeply unpleasant.

Really? I remember those days, distantly. Blacks had higher marriage rates, lower rates of illegitimate birth, stronger communities, higher moral standards, their own business districts, and more. They dressed better, they were more polite, and they didn't kill their own children as they do now. Life in de Bad Old Days may have been unpleasant to some blacks, but it surely couldn't have been as unpleasant for blacks as it now. If you really believe that blacks in today's Detroit (AtlantaGaryPhiladelphiaChicagoClevelandCincinnatiEastStLouisNewOrleanset al) are better off than blacks were in Detroit (AtlantaGaryPhiladelphiaChicagoClevelandCincinnatiEastStLouisNewOrleans et al) circa 1959, I can only wonder what kind of wonder weed is going into your thrice-hourly massive bong hit.

Besides, the fact that freedom of association on private property creates unpleasant feelings in some is no excuse for denying other people their freedom of association on private property. Even if life had been a living hell for Negroes in the pre-"civil rights" era (which it wasn't), it would not have justified the destruction of this fundamental freedom.

At that time, it was very clear that you did not have the right of free association. You could not select a martial partner without government oversight, you could not do certain business transactions with partners of your choosing, you could not vote in a certain manner.

I do not think the words "free association" mean what you think they mean. Free association means you are free to associate yourself with, or disassociate yourself from, anyone you choose for any reason or none when on your own property. None of the "examples" you list above support your contention that people are more free today.

Unfortunately for you

Unfortunately for everybody...

the Supreme Court and Congress have a different view, which is that private property and personal associations are freely able to be decided, but that those making a public accommodation must honor the precept of universal service.

A power they arrogated unto themselves.

The only word for what we have had since 1964 is tyranny.

If you are willing to pay 35%, than it's a small intellectual leap to being required to pay 91%.

I'm not willing to pay either. All taxation of income, at any rate of levy, is theft.

I strongly suspect you are white. And middle class or above, which brings us all the way back to the beginning, in which 1960's America was probably pretty good place to live if you were white, northern, upper middle class. In fact, there aren't all that many periods in American history when that's been a nasty way to live. If you were poor, poor & black, a women, a poor black woman, or some combination of those, life in the US, especially southern and parts of the western US, was deeply unpleasant.

So I guess you are arguing that this is a subjective opinion? Then if it is subjective, Krugman can claim the 1950s were morally stained. By the same token, I have no problem with those with nostalgia for that period. It's all subjective.

> If I "must take all comers", I have no freedom of association. QED. Thank you for making my point for > me.

Yes, we all agree that if you offer a public accommodation you do not have a right to free association unless you go through all kinds of legal contortions to make yourself a weird little club.

> no "private place of accommodation" can exist.

This isn't the case. There are such places that are excepted, it's exceedingly difficult to establish them. They basically all include membership in a club. So it's really not worth it.

> any freedom of association ceases to exist.That's where you go wrong. It's not *any* freedom of association, it's simply for people who operate a business. The flip side is that individuals cannot be discriminated against in law or practice on the basis of a protected class - sex or race, marital status, disability status.

> What I want is freedom of association on private property. For everybody.Right, we get it. You want business owners to be able to discriminate based on race.

> I strongly suspect you hate white people. So?

> Yes, and it's no accident that pre-1964 America was pretty good place to live. It's because white, > middle-class people tend to create societies that are pretty good places to live.For white people. Who have enough money. For the rest of the country, it was second class citizenship with little dignity.

> Besides, the fact that freedom of association on private property creates unpleasant feelings in > some is no excuse for denying other people their freedom of association on private property. Even > if life had been a living hell for Negroes in the pre-"civil rights" era (which it wasn't), it > would not have justified the destruction of this fundamental freedom.It sure is. Because the mechanism of enforcement was violence. Raw violence.

You talk about tyranny via taxes, but have no problem empowering citizens and government to create zones in which it is illegal for certain persons to exist, to be alive, to have a physical presence. The side effect of making no person fundamentally illegal to exist is that you have to serve anyone.

>Of course, if we get the rates they want, we get the government of 1960 too: no Department of Energy, Education, Transportation, EPA, SBA, Commerce, GSA, HUD, HHS.....<

Yep, we'd be much beter without them. As for the tax rates of the mythological "good ol' days of high taxes," I saw this post on another forum that summarized it well:

"The dishonesty or perhaps ignorance in the tax debate that is going on today is the complete misrepresentation of the pre-TRA86 higher marginal rates in the old '53 code. Sure the marginal rates were insane, but the underlying tax code was rife with loopholes that a good tax planner (I was one) could exploit to get a persons effective tax rate as low or lower then it is today. Those loopholes are no longer part of the tax code which is a good thing as they encouraged investors to invest in projects that had no economic viability other then the income sheltering effect they created.

What else is ignored in the conversation is the fact that there was a massive amount of tax fraud at all income levels under the old code. It was so bad and so common that most people took pride in telling others how they cheated on their taxes. When I was practicing it was quite common for us to pick up clients that had owned businesses that had grown into large enterprises that cheated extensively on their income taxes sometimes for decades. Usually the only reason this ever got exposed was due to the owners wanting to sell or go public.

Today it would be very hard to get away with significant tax fraud for very long and the current code does not offer very many ways to legally shelter income, so a marginal tax rate of 70% would probably produce an effective tax rate on the top 5% of at least 45-50% which would be more then double double what the effective rate was under the old tax code. Thus, if we were to go back to those insane marginal tax rates, we would be crossing into a level of taxation never seen in this country."

> Dh: Since you admit to being a hater of white people, I have nothing more to say to you. May God heal > your bigoted soul.

I said no such thing, you have very poor reading skills.

JP:

> "The dishonesty or perhaps ignorance in the tax debate that is going on today is the complete > misrepresentation of the pre-TRA86 higher marginal rates in the old '53 code. Sure the marginal > rates were insane, but the underlying tax code was rife with loopholes that a good tax planner (I > was one) could exploit to get a persons effective tax rate as low or lower then it is today. Those > loopholes are no longer part of the tax code which is a good thing as they encouraged investors to > invest in projects that had no economic viability other then the income sheltering effect they > created.

You are right that the high rates had very negative consequences for tax avoidance. The number on thing being that high-income earners had expense accounts, that were used for everything from cars, to housing, to meals. It was alternative off the book pay. And it was all tax free.

Congress tried to crack down on this practice, and so that's where stock options came into being. And that leads to many many distortions, with executives focusing on short-term performance instead of long-term results.

1959 was better in practically every way. "In Atlanta [today], African-Americans are 54 percent of the population, but are responsible for 100 percent of homicide, 95 percent of rape, 94 percent of robbery, 84 percent of aggravated assault, and 93 percent of burglary. Source: Atlanta Police Department Uniform Crime Reports, Apr 2011 to Apr 2012. Firstly, the link you provide doesn't show those statics or the quote. Can you please link to that quote, with the source you claim?

Because the country was run by and for the benefit of white people.I think that's pretty much the beginning, middle, and end of it. If you were white and not poor, the 1950's was probably better for you. For everyone else, it was unpleasant. The upper and upper-middle classes had more freedom - well, except tax rates of course - and had a nice society, for the most part. And everyone else was welcome to live off whatever dignity was left over. All of the unpleasantness was slid out of sight, like teenage pregnancy, abortion, murder. Race riots, racial tensions, racial violence was a necessary by-product of white people running things.

I've read the NYT article and nowhere does Krugman call for a 91% tax rate- he merely recalls that it was once existed.

The cat thing is a typical Drudge ploy - this is how he puts his spin on the news; with the headlines and the pics. In this case, it's quite amusing, since I always approve of James Bond tropes and the cat-stroking nemesis is one of my favourites.

This was a result of white people not putting a lid on things. Poor and minority communities that lacked internal stability were held together by the dominant white culture. After the 1960s, whites decided to let everyone have freedom. The result is anarchy/chaos in some areas.

One can look at South Africa as a good example. I think a poll was done a couple years ago and South Africans are much happier without apartheid, even though their lives are much worse in terms of crime, economy and other measures. The society devolved and is headed towards chaos, but the people are happier.

"The society devolved and is headed towards chaos, but the people are happier."

Have you even paused to think about what you just wrote?

If that was the case, why do you see signs at protests, saying things like, 'Even AWB was better than ANC' - implying that SA neo-Nazis would do a better job than the ANC-Communist Party alliance. This was at a protest over nurses' pay.

Every one seems to be projecting their own biases and dreams into what the 50's were like. It is very interesting that both sides seem to be fixating onto on thing, segregation, for why the 50's were better or worse.

May I suggest that the race relations had little to do with how things were in the 50's? If you left the South, you pretty much left segregation behind. Now, the Northern cities did not have the population of minorities that they do today, but they were there.

Some touched on what I suspect is the real thing in the beginning of the debate. That the dominate civil religion was one that controlled peoples excesses far more than the one today (which has made things like using Styrofoam and being an orthodox Christian mortal sins).

In short, the reason why there was less bastard children in the 50's was because the society of the time looked down on it and made it very socially uncomfortable. While today it is not only comfortable, but celebrated. So much so, that my child is confused that she has a Daddy at home with Mommy. It is so far out of the experience of most of the kids at her Christian preschool (in a smaller town in Iowa) that she and a few of her friends are viewed as odd.

That isn't because of desegregation. Nor would it be solved if all the ethnic groups retreated to little enclaves. The civil ideology has changed.

I believe my wording was "a bulk" rather than "the bulk" - poorly chosen, but the point stands. Those aged 18 and 19 should not be included in a discussion about teen pregnancy, or their data should be given separately. Grouping them in with actual teenagewrs skews the data. It's absolutely true that people began their adult lives immediately after high school much more than today. Including them is dishonest, and an attempt to mislead.

Dh, I don't care if you take exception to being called a liar. Liars usually do.

> Those aged 18 and 19 should not be included in a discussion about teen pregnancy, or their data > should be given separately. Grouping them in with actual teenagewrs skews the data. It's absolutely > true that people began their adult lives immediately after high school much more than today. > Including them is dishonest, and an attempt to mislead.

This is really bogus. I agree that the numbers magically should given differently, but they aren't. I've noticed you have no problem with me referrencing, which I did, the numbers for those under 15. Yet, of course mixed into those numbers will be a handful of people who married and had children before the age of 15.

Secondly, the trend is exactly the same, so of course, there was no misleading going on. In fact, I pointed out that the data was available for both demographics, and that the had the same trend.

> Dh, I don't care if you take exception to being called a liar. Liars usually do.

It has nothing to do with the words. It has to do with the fact that you refuse to deal with the facts.

Surely I can. What what metrics would you like to look at? Income, earning power, life expectancy, job opportunity, home ownership, preventable death rates, workplace injury?

There is a wealth of data that shows the disparity in individual economic, and social freedom between majority white and minority black citizens during the time frame in question. Happy to put it together if you set the goal posts.

Another trick employed by lying liberals (and a common reason why much social "science" is garbage):

The stated goal is to study a broad phenomenon (in this case violent crime, and changes in rates), but a very specific factor. (Murder) is used as an "indicator."

This is simply a lie. I am responding to a specific claim made, which was:

There are FAR more murders today than back in those supposedly dark days

Hence, why I have extensively cited MURDER rates. That was claim made in response to my comment on VD's article. And I believe the data is very conclusive that murder rates are not FAR higher today and they used to be.

So, again, you are misrepresenting what I wrote, and why I went that direction.

If you read carefully, I suspect you can follow the conversation. In regards to all violent crime, as I said before, if you are willing to move the goal posts to include all violent crime I would be inclined to agree that it is 2x to 3x more violent today than 50 years ago, and that all violent crimes are up, excluding murder.

It's really tiring being accused of lying, when in fact I have done nothing of the sort. It's pretty easy to disagree with the goal posts, or the conclusions, but it's a real stretch to pretend that somehow there is fundamental trickery going on here.

I attribute this to false nostalgia. The perception here is that 1950's and 1960's was a white-run country club with few social problems, and certainly no morality or ethical problems to speak of.

I've expressed my own view, which contends it was a deeply hypocritical time in American history that is endlessly glorified, even though there were no particular merits.

The perception I have is that those times were of great accomplishment. After playing a major role in winning the biggest war in history, the post war years saw a rise in wages and living standards as millions of people were able to attend college, get jobs and purchase homes. In the 60s it culminated with sending a man to the moon and back, which is probably the greatest technical achievement in the history of mankind.

As for crime, I don't doubt it existed and the murder rate may have been higher. However, I've yet to meet anyone who lived through that time period who did not tell me that they used to leave their cars unlocked as well as their house doors. There wasn't the level of fear of crime that we have today. Additionally, I don't think people had to queue in front of a metal detector to ride a train, plane or attend a high school class.

If you are black or homosexual and dismiss that era because of segregation or homophobia, fine, I can't argue with you. But if you were part of the historic Founding population, and their European follow-on cousins, then that time was probably pretty special considering they went through the Great Depression and WW2 just a handful of years before. The transition must have been something to behold.

I would imagine it would be similar to what the Chinese are experiencing with their meteoric rise over the past 25 years. Are there Chinese who have been left out of this rise? Yes, probably 3 to 4 hundred million. But a similar number have witnessed an unbelievable rise in their standard of living. So to them it must be the best of times. Likewise, many older folks I know look back fondly on what life was like 50 to 60 years ago.

There is a wealth of data that shows the disparity in individual economic, and social freedom between majority white and minority black citizens during the time frame in question.

No. The comparison isn't between blacks and whites, it's between blacks in 1950 and blacks in 2012. Choose any metric you like as a justification, although if you just focus on income, I'll counter that it's easy to artificially raise one group's income at the expense of another. A metric that isn't susceptible to direct zero-sum transfers would be preferable. Crime rates for black victims? Incarceration rate? Educational achievement? Intact families?

If you want to compare blacks against whites, you have to show that the black/white ratio in 1950 is worse than the black/white ratio in 2012, for the metric you choose. Simply citing black:white for 1950 isn't going to cut it.

I attribute this to false nostalgia. The perception here is that 1950's and 1960's was a white-run country club with few social problems, and certainly no morality or ethical problems to speak of.

I've expressed my own view, which contends it was a deeply hypocritical time in American history that is endlessly glorified, even though there were no particular merits.

So you discredit other peoples' perception by coming up with your own and deciding that it must be more valid.

If blacks weren't so busy shirking responsibility and whining about oppression, maybe they wouldn't be in prison and killing each other for shoes and the like today. However, they refuse to do what requires some effort and instead blame Whitey for all of their problems. They've only gotten worse as time goes on because the more they get used to the lower standards they have set for themselves, the easier it is to lower the standards even further.

> So you discredit other peoples' perception by coming up with your own and deciding that it must be > more valid.

Yes, because I believe that the data supports my view, and discredits the alternative view. It's a sort of counterfeit feeling of good will.

11B:

> As for crime, I don't doubt it existed and the murder rate may have been higher. However, I've yet > to meet anyone who lived through that time period who did not tell me that they used to leave their > cars unlocked as well as their house doors. There wasn't the level of fear of crime that we have > today. Additionally, I don't think people had to queue in front of a metal detector to ride a > train, plane or attend a high school class.

I think you have hit a very important point: fear. We are deeply fearful. Perhaps it has warped out standard of living. Perhaps people remember the 1950s and 1960s more pleasantly than now because they were less fearful of everything.

But then I think of the various "red scares", and it reminds me that no, there was fear, but it was a bigger fear. A few of the "end", but not a fear of having your car stolen.

If you are black or homosexual and dismiss that era because of segregation or homophobia, fine, I can't argue with you.

That's pretty much how I see. Thanks.

pdimov:

If you want to compare blacks against whites, you have to show that the black/white ratio in 1950 is worse than the black/white ratio in 2012, for the metric you choose. Simply citing black:white for 1950 isn't going to cut it.

I think that's fair and reasonable. What would be a good metric in your view? And how do you weight things that are simply binary: "ability to marry outside of your race", "parity with whites in public accommodations", etc. There are serious issues to consider.

van:

Including 18- and 19-yearolds at all is dishonest (unless they are broken out separately), for the reasons I've stated. If it's the best data we have, then we have no useful data.

We have useful data according to your standard, it shows the same thing as 15-19 year olds.

If you aren't arguing that crime is lower, then the entire conversation is pointless

I am not arguing crime is lower. Why did you feel the need to jump in, call me a liar, and not understand what the discussion was about?

When a company goes bankcrupt the employees have more to lose than their jobs. The pension accumulation is used to bring in money for penson payouts. But in order to keep the money coming in, it must be fully invested. And the interest earned should be at least six percent to make payouts possible.

A strategy by the government for fighting the depression is to to lower all interest rates to almost zero. Not only does it punish savers, it makes pension funds non-functional. Just to follow the future of this mess alone may be a bit too exciting.

When I hear that blacks were worse off in 1950 compared to today, I interpret this to mean that a black person would, if given the choice between 1950 and 2012, choose to live and raise his/her children in 2012. This might well be true, but I'm not sure what metric is the best proxy for answering this hypothetical. It's even harder if we try to control for technological improvements and affirmative action.

The same question exists for poor whites, by the way. You claim that only affluent whites were better off in 1950, but I suspect that, on the contrary, poor whites were relatively better off in 1950, because it is them who are generally exposed to the negatives of 2012. And there is no affirmative action for poor whites to sweeten the pill.